Product Reviews In Magazines

In today’s world, printed magazines are pretty much useless when it comes to news. You have a much better chance of getting to know the latest stuff off Twitter, not even blogs, let alone printed magazines. If there is one thing that magazines still do a pretty good job at, its the product reviews. At least that was what I thought till I read the digital version of the September issue of Desktop Engineering.

The cover mentioned a review of aesthetica 3.3 from Icona Solutions. The review was written by Neil McLeod who was described as follows at the end of the article:

Neil McLeod is a UK-based marketing and communications consultant who specializes in the design and engineering software applications marketplace.

A marketing and communications consultant writing a product review of a software “for auditing and improving the perceived quality of manufactured products“. Awesome!

But come to think of it, Neil is probably perfectly suited to write this product review. You know why? Because he happens to be the same person who writes the press releases for Icona Solutions. Yes, he is their PR guy. This press release ended with his contact information and a note stating “Images available from Neil McLeod on request.”

So here we have a PR guy writing a review of a product developed by a company that pays him to write its press releases. And the editors at Desktop Engineering didn’t even think it unwise to let him put his name to it. Desktop Engineering might as well start publishing press releases as product reviews.

This is the pits. Journalism has gone to the dogs.